Mary Lou Williams is perpetually contemporary. Her writing and
performing are and have always been just a little ahead throughout
her career. . . . her music retains--and maintains--a standard
of quality that is timeless. She is like soul on soul.

--Duke Ellington
Music is my Mistress, p.169

Mary Lou Williams, Pianist-Composer-Arranger, was one of the
few musicians who played through all the eras in the
history of jazz. I was blessed with the opportunity to study with
her from September 1979 into March 1980 while she was teaching
at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. Although I came
to the conclusion while there that I simply wasn't obsessive
enough to want to practice all day every day and play all night
every night (as this was what seemed called for if one was
serious about living the music), the opportunity to learn from
and briefly get to know one of this century's most extraordinary
musicians was among the greatest gifts I will receive from
life. Never well-known to the general public, she was a "musician's
musician". She worked with and was known and loved by a large
majority of the people who created the unique American art form
called Jazz, or as Duke more accurately put it in his
resplendent autobiography,

You probably heard of the word `jazz.' It's all right if that
is the way you understand or prefer it. We stopped using the
word in 1943, and we much prefer to call it the American Idiom,
or the Music of Freedom of Expression.

Music is My Mistress, p.309

Herein is presented a growing collection of material regarding this
quintessential Giant of Jazz.